Sessualità femminile in modalità neusachlich

In the literature of the Neue Sachlichkeit, the representation of sexuality, both heterosexual and homosexual, plays a central role. The sobriety and objectivity with which the relationship between the sexes is analysed and the romantic concept of ‘love’ is demys- tified, in those years rich in cultural and political ferment, goes hand in hand with the challenge to more traditional social concepts and norms. At the centre of many novels of this literary movement, whose development was violently halted following the Nazi takeover in 1933, is a completely new type of female character, explicitly defined as the neue Frau, who moves ‘freely’ between social classes, interpreting her body in a provocative and queer way. The aim of this paper is to analyse, from a comparative as well as a gender perspective, the represen- tation of female sexuality in a series of novels written by male and female authors (Erich Kästner, Hans Fallada; Irmgard Keun, Gabriele Tergit) of the period, highlighting how it reveals at the same time different forms of inequality.